Crown Chicken
Refrigeration upgrade project
Crown Chicken purchased a Pennine Vent-Stream poultry air chiller in 2008 to run alongside its existing mechanised basket chiller. The Vent-Stream chilled and conveyed 5,000 untrussed chickens per hour, and the basket chill handled hot-trussed birds at a throughput of 2,500 birds per hour.
The customer's problem
Crown subsequently asked for advice on a replacement for the R22 refrigerant used on the basket chill and which was being phased out to comply with F-Gas regulations.
Our site survey discovered that the basket chill was a bottleneck in the production process. Access restrictions prevented defrost heaters from being replaced; the air plenum was too narrow, restricting air flow; and the actual throughput of chickens being cooled to less than 4°C was only 2,500.
Our solution
We raised the combined throughput of the air chiller and basket chiller to 10,000 chickens per hour by:
- Extending the air chiller to increase throughput from 5,000 to 6,500 chickens per hour
- Installing a new screw compressor pack to run the air chiller
- Switching the existing compressor pack to run the basket chill, replacing the old semi-hermetic compressors
- Replacing the evaporators in the basket chill
- Castellating the ceiling between roof trusses to accommodate new evaporator fans and to increase the plenum volume, significantly reducing the air side pressure drop and increasing air volume
- Installing a hot gas defrost system thereby saving electricity.
